The Diamond King

by Patricia Potter

  She had not expected it to hurt so much.

  She ignored his comment. “The crew did not know what to do. I convinced them I was the only one who had a chance to see you.”

  His eyes stared through her, as if piercing her very soul. “I will have Hamish’s head. And Mickey’s, too.”

  “You will have neither of them if you cannot leave here,” she replied tartly, her temper beginning to emerge. She had expected him to be less than enthusiastic about her pretense, but his ingratitude toward his men was intolerable. They worshiped him. “You would prefer to hang?”

  “In preference to being married to a Campbell,” he replied, but this time there was no bite to the words, only puzzlement.

  “And having your child,” she added serenely.

  He stared at her as if she had two heads. A muscle twitched in his cheek. The unmarked side. “What else did you tell him?” he finally asked.

  “That I—you—have friends in powerful positions in Paris.”

  “And your name?”

  “He simply called me madame. He did not ask my first name.”

  The captain muttered something under his breath. Claude regarded her with admiration. “Clever, my lady.”

  “I do not think you should call me that,” she cautioned.

  “Oh, bloody hell,” the captain said.

  “I have a pistol,” she offered.

  “You know you can be tried for treason for helping me,” he said. “At the very least, it would destroy your wedding.”

  “It does not matter.”

  “It does matter,” he said, fury returning to his voice.

  “I did not do it for you,” she said. “Meg needs you. So does Robin. And the others. They had no idea what to do.”

  “They need to sail away.”

  “They will not leave you.”

  “They are fools, just as you are.” But his voice was ragged, and for the first time she suspected feeling behind the harshness. His gaze bored into her, and she felt the heat from it radiating throughout her body.

  She just stood there, still feeling the sensations from his kiss, wondering how that could happen. She had never been kissed before, but she did not think it was always like this, not a world shattering moment. Her blood seemed to flow slower. She was barely aware of Claude’s presence. She was very aware of the captain’s, of his dark blue eyes and the lips that smiled on one side, and the way he pushed back a lock of hair that fell over his forehead.

  “Do any of the other passengers know what you are doing?”

  “Nay, they are locked up.”

  He nodded. “And Meg?”

  “She still has a fever. The physician wanted to bleed her, but Hamish and I thought she was too weak.”

  “Did you tell the physician your name?”

  “Nay. It was never mentioned.”

  Surprisingly, he appeared worried about her, rather than himself.

  “You will not be able to stay ashore here now and try for passage to Barbados.”

  “I know.” She found breathing difficult. The electricity between them was alive now. Alive and sizzling. Tension was compelling, almost visibly drawing her closer to him. His eyes darkened, the usually cool blue now intense.

  One of his fingers touched her cheek. “How did you ever get into the quarter boat?”

  She swallowed hard, only to discover a lump in the throat that had not been there before. “Hamish literally threw me.”

  “Does nothing frighten you?”

  “A great deal frightens me.”

  “But not me?”

  “Especially you.”

  “Then why …?”

  She did not reply. She had told him a few minutes earlier that she was doing this because of Meg, but at this moment she—and she suspected the captain also—knew it had something to do with him.

  His fingers trailed fire down her cheek. Then they caught a lock of hair. “You are very bonny, Lady Jeanette.”

  “Jenna,” she told him again.

  “Jenna,” he agreed with a wry twist of his lips.

  “Then you are not angry?”

  “I am furious.”

  The lump became bigger. But she tried to keep her voice steady. “I think the governor might release you. He believes you have very powerful friends.”

  “I will let him continue to think so,” he said.

  “Then you will not need the pistol.”

  “I have no place to hide it. Where …?”

  She felt her face warm. “Inside my … stockings.”

  A smile played around his lips. A true smile, not the half smile that permanently made him look sardonic and as if he were always laughing at—but not with—the world. “A little uncomfortable?”

  “Aye,” she agreed, heat puddling deep in her abdomen. The discomfort had faded amidst more intriguing physical reactions to him. Her pulse was throbbing much too rapidly and there was a tightening in her chest.

  Suddenly, he stepped back and his fingers played with her bonnet ribbons, untying them. The bonnet came off in his hands, and he touched the hair that Celia had worked so hard to contain. A curl fell down on her face.

  “You do not stop surprising me,” he said.

  She had not stopped surprising herself these past days, nay weeks, since she had left home. She had discovered a part of her she had never realized existed. A part that had been buried deep inside by years of being told what she could not do, rather than urged to find those things she could do.

  Claude cleared his throat, dispelling the moment of magic, the impression of being totally alone in a world of their own making. Jenna forced herself to step back.

  The captain looked startled, as if jerked from a dream. His smile faded, replaced by the suspicious, sardonic look she knew so well.

  “Perhaps we should discuss what to do next,” Claude said.

  The captain nodded. “Do you know what the governor intends beyond dining with us?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  He muttered under his breath. “Give Claude the pistol in the event the governor changes his mind again. We can hide it in the room.”

  “I will require some privacy.”

  The captain and Claude both went over to the window, turning their backs to her. She sighed. Getting even slightly undressed in the company of men was a daunting prospect. So was the prospect of fighting with the skirt and petticoats again.

  And her hands and fingers would not work right. They were still trembling from the lingering impact of that moment when the world had seemed to stop.

  Alex brooded as he fixed his gaze on the ships in the harbor. The Ami lay at anchor. The Charlotte within shouting range of it.

  Freedom. So close and yet so far.

  He’d felt that freedom since the moment he had set sail from France. The frigate had not been in good shape, but it was fast, and Hamish had been invaluable in supervising the sails. It had sped over the waves, and the wind, once they reached the Caribbean, had been warm and welcoming, not like the cold, wet mists that had so plagued them in the Highland caves.

  He did not need the warmth now. He felt on fire.

  And for a Campbell.

  He’d never been so startled as when the door opened and she stood there. He had seen traces of beauty in her, but he’d not been prepared for what he’d seen tonight. The bonnet had a wide brim that framed a face that had been too severe without it. The bonnet softened it, or perhaps it was the green fire in her eyes or the fact that her face had come alive with excitement. If placing her life and her future in jeopardy could bring a glow to her face and sparkling light to her eyes, he had to wonder what kind of life she’d had at her home. Life, or mere existence. Had her family robbed her of the joy and vibrancy he saw in her now? Whatever had brought it about now, it made her infernally appealing.

  But his anger did not come from her being a Campbell or attractive, or both. It came, instead, from the sacrifice she was making.

  She had to kn
ow she was risking her marriage. Even her life.

  That thought was devastating. He did not want that sacrifice. He wanted nothing from her. He certainly did not want to owe her.

  He definitely did not want to be attracted to her.

  He was. He could hear the rustling of silk behind him. He heard a soft sigh. Then frustration. He wanted to help. He could see her legs in his mind’s eye. They were probably slim, most certainly attractive.

  She had a pistol tied to her leg—a provocative image. He had to stop thinking about her, and start thinking about how to get through this mess. Could he rely on the governor’s possible change of heart, or should he make his move now?

  Unfortunately, all he could consider was the woman behind him. His enemy. A woman he had captured and treated as a prisoner rather than a lady. A woman who had stormed the governor’s mansion with all the nerve of a born adventurer. A woman who was clearly uncomfortable lying, even to an enemy.

  And Robin? Burke? The latter had never been hesitant in taking action. He needed to control events, not be a puppet of them.

  Alex heard her voice again. Soft with just a touch of Scottish burr, and it fired something deep inside him.

  “You can turn back now,” she said.

  Both he and Claude turned at the same time. She held out the pistol with one hand as if it burned her.

  Claude took it, checked to see whether it was loaded, and found that it was.

  Alex looked at the weapon, then at the woman who had smuggled it in. He wanted to reach out and touch her again.

  She was everything he never thought he would find in a woman. She loved the sea, she had cheerfully taken care of a sick child, she was intelligent and adventuresome enough to get to him when no one else had. She had obviously charmed the governor.

  The plain Campbell sparrow. How he had underestimated her on all counts.

  She was everything he wanted, and she was a Campbell. He was not convinced he could ever get beyond that. Even if he could, what could he offer her? The life of a fugitive. A wanted man. A scarred and crippled man.

  A knock came at the door, and a servant indicated that both he and Lady Jeanette should join the party downstairs.

  He nodded, then closed the door and turned to Claude. “If they let you go before I see you again, tell the crew to wait and keep the prisoners below. I want them to know nothing about Lady Jeanette.”

  “And if you do not return?”

  “If we are not back by tomorrow night, set sail for France.”

  “We could not leave you.”

  “You can, and you will for the children. And the crew.”

  “And the Charlotte?”

  “Leave it. Transfer the crew to the Ami. Those who can swim should do so; those who cannot go by boat, but do it at night.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “The logs and money are in my cabin. Just make sure the children are aboard this time, and that they reach France.”

  “What about Burke?”

  “He goes, too. Even if you have to knock him out.”

  Claude hesitated, then nodded.

  Alex turned to the woman who had been listening intently. “How long have we been married, my lady?” he asked, trying to keep his voice low enough that no one would hear it.

  “Long enough to be expecting a bairn.”

  He winced at the reminder. “A year?”

  “Aye.”

  “Where?”

  “Paris.”

  Alex nodded. “Any other details I should know?” He tried to keep his voice even. It was not easy with his body still responding to hers. He struggled to keep it in control.

  “A great deal,” she said, and though her voice was teasing, it also trembled just a bit. She was not nearly as at ease with this as she wanted him to believe.

  A knock on the door again.

  “I will agree with anything you say,” he said.

  She raised a dark eyebrow in an expression that was endearing. And challenging. “You will?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Aye,” he said. “You have trapped me neatly, my lady.”

  “I do not think you are so easy to trap.”

  He looked her straight in the eye. He wanted to agree, but it would not be true. She had trapped him. In more ways than one. More ways than he would ever let her understand.

  “Let us go,” he said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jenna could not help watching the captain, studying him, stunned by the ease with which he had accepted her deception. The memory taunted her—of how he had fallen into the role earlier with hands and mouth as intense as the storm they had weathered aboard ship.

  They should not have followed each other so easily. But they did. He was a man who obviously adapted to whatever circumstances faced him. He might rebel at them, but then he used them to his advantage.

  She was finding it disturbingly easy to do the same.

  He rarely showed his emotions, except flashes of anger and just now a glimpse of something else, a momentary warmth and passion that he’d cloaked as quickly as it had revealed itself.

  She had no idea now how he felt about her deception, other than he was willing to use it at the moment.

  And then what?

  Did she go to Barbados now? Had she changed too much in the past few weeks to become the wife of a man who knew nothing about her, much less had any affection for her?

  Especially after the heated moments she’d shared with Captain Malfour. She’d experienced startling intimacy and attraction, a glimpse of a splendid world she was not sure she could now ignore.

  She also knew, though, that this world would not include the captain, not with his contempt and even hatred for her name. Nor, she thought, could she accept his easy breaking of the law and the peace. There was a way of addressing grievances, and it was not through theft and piracy and murder.

  Still, she was chastened to realize that she found a small thrill in his attentions, no matter how fleeting they may be.

  For the first time, she felt shame, not for her actions but for the thoughts that followed them.

  The servant opened the door to a small salon, and Captain Malfour stood back to allow her entrance. Again, she felt an odd sense of belonging, of a kind of completeness with him.

  The governor greeted them effusively. She looked at the captain. He did not even raise an eyebrow, appearing to accept the new cordiality as his due. The governor’s wife, Gabrielle, was a thin and pale woman who seemed to hang back from her husband. Still, she could not withhold curiosity.

  “My husband said you have been in Paris. How wonderful. I do miss it. You must tell me all the news. He said you knew the Duc d’Estaige. Such a good man.”

  Jenna’s heart sank. Having never met the duc, or been in Paris, she had no answer.

  The captain broke in. “Aye, he is, and his wife is the toast of Paris. Her brother is to marry a German princess.”

  “And the fashions?” Gabrielle asked.

  “They have not changed,” Jenna said, which seemed a safe reply. Surely English fashions would not be that different from French fashions.

  “Your dress would be the envy of Parisians,” her erstwhile husband told the hostess, and the woman blushed with pleasure.

  “Enough about fashion,” her governor interrupted. He led the way into the dining room and to a large table sparkling with silver and crystal at one end. “I thought we would eat at this end,” the governor said, “and Madame Malfour can tell us more of Paris.”

  Trying not to send a panicked look at the captain, she sat down.

  “In the meantime,” the captain said smoothly, “I would like my first mate returned to the ship.”

  “You do not enjoy our hospitality?”

  Jenna held her breath. There was a trace of a threat in the question.

  “My mate has particularly enjoyed it. You have good wine, your excellency, but I have an unruly crew and I would dislike them to become anxious.”

  The
governor’s lips thinned, but then parted and turned upward again. “He can go back tonight.”

  “And my wife and I?”

  “I pray that you will stay tonight. We have business to conduct. After supper.”

  Jenna almost dropped the knife she was using. To stay tonight meant sharing a room with the captain. She did not think she was ready for that.

  A gleam came into the captain’s eyes. “Her clothes …”

  “My wife will lend her something tonight, or you can send for something from the ship. I understand two of your crew are outside.”

  “That would be Burke and the cabin boy.”

  “Aye, one of them is a lad. They have been fed, but they will not leave.”

  Jenna froze. What if one of them slipped and mentioned her name?

  The thought did not seem to bother the captain, though, nor did the idea of spending the night in the same room. “Then my wife would be delighted to stay here,” he said. “She has been wanting time ashore. And after supper, I’ll send the boy back to the ship.”

  “Done then,” the governor said, and started eating.

  His wife kept glancing at them. Probably because of the captain’s scar, and her own wearing of gloves at supper. They must appear to be an odd couple. At least the gloves hid the lack of a ring.

  Jenna was barely conscious of the food, although the captain ate well. She felt like a fly snared in a web, and it did not help that the web was of her own making. How could she get through an evening with the governor’s wife without exposing the fact that she had never been to Paris? And how could she get through a night in the same room as the captain?

  And ever more important, if the Ami was allowed to sail with all aboard, then where would she be going?

  She had been carried along like a feather in the wind these past weeks, ever since the letter came about the possible marriage to Mr. Murray. There had been Maisie’s fall, the voyage, the capture of the ship, and Meg’s illness.

  Until she had taken this step earlier today, nothing had been of her own doing. In one impulsive, or perhaps not so impulsive, move, she had perhaps changed her life forever. If she allowed herself to think about it, she knew the knot of apprehension lurking inside would become enormous. Where would she go? The captain could not wait to rid himself of a Campbell’s presence. He would use her well enough. But then …